NSF awards $3M to MIT for a pioneering graduate training
program in quantum information science:
major new grant
to unify MIT's strengths into an interdisciplinary
doctoral study program spanning science and engineering
For Immediate Release
MONDAY, 4 August 2008
Contact: William Smith, Assistant
Director for Finance and Sponsor Relations
Phone: +1.617.253.5621
Email: whs@mit.edu
CAMBRIDGE, MA. 08.04.2008
The National Science Foundation (NSF), through its
Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship
(IGERT) program, has awarded a $3M grant to Isaac
Chuang,
Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Associate
Professor of Physics, to fund a pioneering MIT program
with the goal of creating a new cohesive, interdisciplinary,
doctoral study program in the growing field of quantum
information science (QIS).
MIT's new graduate training program, called
Interdisciplinary Quantum Information Science and Engineering
(iQuISE), will seek to nurture a new generation of
students, from education through employment, to become
tomorrow's quantum information scientists and
engineers. Much of modern information technology is
built on the foundations of physical switching and
signaling devices, algorithms, information, and control.
Recently, these foundations have evolved rapidly forward,
with a tremendous new influx of ideas from quantum
physics, resulting in high performance quantum algorithms,
emerging new capabilities for information transmission,
and a nascent generation of quantum information processing
devices.
Because QIS has been emerging as a field to which
many traditional academic disciplines contribute, the
major challenge for QIS at MIT, and at similar institutions,
is to provide doctoral students with a cohesive and
complete experience. A primary objective of the new
MIT program is to accomplish this not just in the classroom
and in the laboratory, but also to enrich the experience
to prepare MIT's QIS doctoral candidates for
careers in academia, government and industry.
"The education dilemma facing quantum information
science and engineering," said Professor Chuang, "is
keenly felt at MIT because of our leadership role in
the field. MIT has research groups and classes in QIS,
led by the field's pioneers, but the very diversity
and richness of our resources creates a great challenge
to giving our students a coherent experience. With
the NSF's generous support, which will combine
with resources that the Institute will devote as well
as participation from a broad consortium of government
and industry partners, we are going to tackle this
challenge with an innovative, interdisciplinary approach
to training the new generation of QIS scientists and
engineers."
Jeffrey H.
Shapiro, Julius A. Stratton Professor of
Electrical Engineering and Director of the Research
Laboratory of Electronics (RLE) and Seth
Lloyd, Professor
of Mechanical Engineering and Professor of Engineering
Systems, are the co-principal investigators. Senior
faculty investigators and graduate students from seven
MIT academic departments and divisions in both the
School of Science and the School of Engineering will
work together to form the program, which will be administered
centrally by RLE.
"There is widespread belief that fundamental
ideas from QIS will lead to useful new information
technology," said Professor Shapiro, "and
provide computing, communication, and control systems
beyond the limits of traditional paradigms. These carry
with them profound social implications. This is why
iQuISE will incorporate education in ethics and social
context."
Professor Lloyd noted, "The students in MIT's
new NSF training program will be encouraged to cross
disciplines, and develop a common fellowship with their
peers. We will also address training for post-academic
jobs directly by connecting students to government
and industrial members of the iQuISE Consortium."
The new doctoral training program would not be possible
without strong and widespread support from MIT. "The
iQuISE program," said Claude R. Canizares, Bruno
Rossi Professor of Physics, Vice President for Research
and Associate Provost, "represents a bold step
forward to coalesce and cohere the education and research
training that will produce a new generation of quantum
information researchers for our nation. It is especially
gratifying that MIT's strengths in bringing
together different disciplines into innovative cooperation
will be the backbone of this new program."
MIT academic departments and divisions that will have
faculty and students participating in iQuISE include
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Physics,
Mechanical Engineering, Mathematics, Nuclear Engineering,
and Engineering Systems.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent
federal agency created by Congress in 1950 "to
promote the progress of science; to advance the national
health, prosperity, and welfare; to secure the national
defense..." NSF's IGERT program has been
developed to meet the challenges of educating U.S.
Ph.D. scientists, engineers, and educators with the
interdisciplinary backgrounds, deep knowledge in chosen
disciplines, and technical, professional, and personal
skills to become in their own careers the leaders and
creative agents for change.
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